This is an idea when I saw a  busroll hanging in a friend's house, showing the destinations from a long-defunct service. I used to be a bus conductor on the Isle of Wight and one of my jobs was to wind this down after reaching the bus station and setting the new one; sometimes cranking wildly and hanging on to money and life, as Chris, the driver, took the last corner to Ryde Town Hall on two wheels.

I thought it would be nice to make the London 'Busman's Prayer' into a similar object; graphically it really appealed to me, and I wanted to submit it to the RA fir the Summer Exhibition, but I just ran out of time, and money... Anyway it's on a new p new print-on-demand shop called Spreadshirt.

Have a look. There'll be another one along later.

http://johnnybull.spreadshirt.co.uk/

Pretty as an animated gif. My daughter dressing up and posing as someone being buzzed by a Spitfire. The cover of this year's Chalke Valley History Festival brochure shows Phoebe and our neighbour, Millie, dressed as Victorians taking the air and being surprised, maybe terrified, at the sight of a Spitfire howling through the valley on the way back from a sortie. It's a montage, so they're not really frightened, just a bit cold... Anyway, here's Feebs going through the acting paces. Takes after her mother, clever and beautiful. Thank goodness.

The logo I'm now putting on the back of T shirts and some other items. Shameless I know, but... talking of which, what an utterly brilliant show and a testament  to the craggy genius of David Threlfall, the John Lennon of modern english acting. Love it.

These might very well go into the Zazzle shop that I haven't opened yet. T shirts, bags, mousemats and anything that suits...Working from some very lo-res jpegs and some pretty hi-res ink splashes, I've tried to convey some of the free form fun that's to be had at Tollard Royal this year in July. Here's a link to the site:http://www.dare2festival.co.uk/index.html

I really like the modest look of this blog; there's something quiet an unassuming that disguises the brazen ambition of my latest project. A french bar painted in St Rémy that I've posted to Zazzle, which will shortly be available from my Le Magasin Store. I think it might even be on a coat for a small dog. Which, if the French have a phrase that in some way resembles ours for the hangover-diminishing morning tipple, then we've got a winner. But something tells me we probably haven't. Alors.

The great thing about stuff that you haven't seen for ages is the freshness that you might not have noticed at the end of a day's repetitive Photoshopping whenever you quietly archived them to their discworld. Some images are crying out to be woken up from hibernation, recoloured, refined, and revitalised. I think I was playing around with the anatomical heart engraving a couple of years ago; put it on my website and sold as a print. Now, it's available on Zazzle and it looks great as a card. Bit late I know for this year, but time seems to have flown by. Again. Anyway, there might be enough time to put a few more things up. A heart isn't just for Valentine's, it's for ever.

Sorry. Got a bit carried away. Have a look after following the link and tell your friends. I'll love you forever.

I've been responsible for the graphics of this festival, which thanks to a fantastic cast list and really good planning, was an astonishing success. A copper-bottomed, nickel-plated humdinger of an event that surprised almost everybody including us working on it. Last year's graphics showed historical figures looming through the Bowerchalke mist. The colours were warm. This year's theme is a continuation, although I was going for a different look, the reaction was, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' kind of thing.

So, this year, the colour is very saturated in green, and again the specific subjects are represented as icons standing, or lying, or, in the case of the Normandy Landings, represented by a Hawker Typhoon with invasion stripes, taking off from the vivid green sward.

So, to capitalise, not too cheesily, I'm going to produce some artefacts that will be posted to a new Zazzle store. But I'm sure they will be on sale on site: t-shirts, rucksacks, mugs, and oh, I hope, vests. If they ever become fashionable again. Or if a vacationing Bruce Willis decides to take a stroll down our way.

Here it is, a Christmas card that celebrates France, shopping and last but not yeast, dreadful puns.

The image is taken from on of my shop paintings of St Rémy de Provence. You can see the whole lot of them on my Johnny Bulletins blog, which now exists in what appears to be an irretrievable Dynamic View. One day I'll get all my old cards out for a dusting and see if any are worth releasing as cards for a discerning public.

Until then. Let's all try and earn a crust in and out of the Eurozone.

 

My mate Laurence Mitchell on the Isle of Wight (where I was born and probably raised...) is getting quite web savvy and runs a very successful jewellers shop on Ebay. Yuk, but once you navigate the rivers of dreary cyan, it actally looks like good, least I thought so. Being a retailer of many years standing, he's please with it, and since he's going to be in charge of buying off my Z-store I thought he ought to have a trial run and try and buy some cards from me. His first reaction was a bit off-putting: "Where are your other cards? I don't to buuy some competitor's rubbish..." Ahm, well, you see... I plainly wasn't going to convince him, and he did have a point. I don't know, there just aren't enough hours in the day for me to make stuff and then try and stick it on a barely comprehensible rickety stack of poppadums which is the sensation I get when trying to sift through my stock.

Paul Stickland, who's a bit younger and a lot smarter, has this stuff nailed, and says they're really good in the forums, or the fora. I'm sort of dreading it with the same fear I had when going to buy an Akai reel-to-reel in Muswell Hill all those years ago: overheard an assistant say to reddening customer. "Bang and WHAT? This is a serious establishment..."

Shit, why was I such a fucking dunce at maths? And what am I doing here?

Oh here's s a revolutionary choir graphic:

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